Where Did All These Zombies Come From?
by inmypantaloons
Summary: Do you like zombies? Of course you do. Zombies are everywhere, in everything for no reason other than "because zombies," so why not Legend of Korra? Thus, I bring you this tale of mutilation and death, wherein Korra and the gang have to survive a modern zombie apocalypse. Will people die? Probably. Will there be lots of zombies? Hecks ya. Borra, Makorra, Masami, Irosami, etc.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Everything has zombies these days, so why not Avatar? Zombies are good times, and I'm bored, so I thought this would be a fun little diversion, and I'm procrastinating on other things I'm supposed to be doing.

(People will be eaten in this story. I might go the Game of Thrones route and kill everything you love, or I might go with the Supernatural everybody-supposedly-dies-but-not-really-except-for-Adam approach.)

Where Did All These Zombies Come From?  
Chapter One

One thing about zombies is that they're slow; unless your legs are broken they're pretty easy to outrun. What you really have to worry about is getting cornered, or surrounded. If you're not totally stupid you can avoid them pretty easily.

Well, I guess I should rephrase that. They're pretty easy to outrun, and you can get away if you're smart, but the real thing about zombies is this: the bastards don't get tired.

Lungs burning, legs aching, I rounded the damp, rough edge of a small, rocky outcropping. One would think that five years of track-and-field (two in middle school, three in high school) would have prepared me for a good, long run. Let me tell you something, though; there's a big difference between sprinting and endurance running. I'd started at a steady jog, dodging zeds like a pro, but they're persistent little fuckers. One shambling loser in cargo pants had turned into a flock—pack? Seriously, what do you call a group of dead people?—and slow as they are they were running me ragged.

"Shit," I hissed, gulping down air. I'd had to keep increasing my speed, and now that the terrain was uphill I was struggling to make my way through the thick forest growth. This deep in the woods, there were hardly any decent trails, and it was all too easy to stumble into a patch of thorns, or find your way blocked by deadfall. After over three hours of trying to escape, I was barely moving any faster than they were. My only advantage at that point was that they were too damn dumb to figure out how to circumvent the same obstacles that were slowing me down.

With a steadying breath, I took a careful look around the rock I was leaning on, and swore again. How were there so many of them out here? Nearly every turn I took, there was another one of those dead freaks, snarling and reaching for me with gnarled, bloodthirsty hands. No matter how much I zigged and zagged, they just kept coming. I couldn't avoid them when more of them kept on joining the hunt.

_I'm so fucked,_ I thought. The thing about it was, I was more angry than afraid. It royally pissed me off that this was how I was gonna go down; exhausted and at the end of my rope. I didn't want to get eaten by a horde—that's a good one, I think—of zombies. If I had my choice, I'd go down swinging, and in the end I'd take myself out of commission so that I didn't turn into one of those things.

Not that I wanted to die. No, I really would have preferred to live, but I felt like I was running short on options.

A raspy groaning reached my ears, and I knew they were finally upon me. Backing away from the edge of the rock, I looked around desperately, trying to find a way out of this. _The rock_, I thought, looking the hulking formation up and down. Normally I wouldn't have considered it a good hiding spot. Too easy for them to surround me, for one. I'd never be able to get down if I went up there, but there was no way I could keep running like this.

Resolute, I stepped forward and found a sturdy foothold, then I pushed, reaching upward for something to hold onto so I could haul myself up. It took a few minutes of my burning muscles protesting this new form of abuse, but I finally reached the top. _Not a bad view_, I thought as I straightened, dusting off the knees of my careworn jeans like it mattered. I could see through gaps in the trees to the hills beyond. Nothing but forest for miles and miles, I knew. This was the end of the line.

_Try not to think about it like that_, I thought to myself as I hauled my pack off my shoulders and set it on the rock. Out of the waistband of my pants, I pulled free my weapon; a nine millimeter handgun, which I knew for a fact only had six rounds left in the magazine. _Korra's last stand_, I thought, staring down at the gun like it might turn into a snake and bite me. A fitting analogy, considering what I was about to do. For the last few months that gun had been my best and only friend, protecting me from zombies and humans alike. It caught me my dinner when I had to hunt, and offered more nighttime comfort than any teddy bear-dog ever had. I had a knife, too, a rinky-dink little switchblade that was good for stealth kills, but I doubted it would be much use in this situation.

_Five_, I thought_. I can take out five of them_. It was sort of a joke, I knew, since there were about three times as many as that currently milling around the rock, and more still stumbling toward me through the trees. At least I could die with dignity, or as much dignity as one could muster with their brains splattered all over the place. The only thing I really cared about was making sure they couldn't get at me. Looking up, I could see the faint outline of a buzzard-hawk circling the sky above me. Did it know what was about to happen? I decided I didn't mind if it swooped down after it was all said and done. If something normal ate me, then that was fine. After all, it had to be having a hard time finding food that wasn't tainted.

I picked my targets carefully, hearing my mom's voice echoing in the back of my mind. "Don't be so picky, Korra," she berated me from beyond the grave. I wasn't picky, I'd always insisted, I just had more refined tastes that leaned towards sweatpants, flip-flops, and things that weren't vegetables.

The douchebag in cargo pants, the one that started it all, he went down first. I aimed, and placed a shot dead center in his forehead. He dropped like a sack of potatoes, like they always do. The next was a little girl—the kid ones always bothered me the most. Nobody should have to become one of those things, much less a child. After that was a guy who kind of looked like my ninth grade science teacher. He was always looking at his female students in a way that made me want to choke him with one of his ugly ties. Behind him came a girl who had once been pretty, I assumed, before most of her face had been chewed off.

Then I was down to two bullets, and there were ten more zombies than there had been when I started. They were swarming the rock, reaching upward with skeletal hands, gnashing their teeth, and shuffling ineffectively against the five foot barrier that separated them from their next meal. "You're not even alive!" I shouted down at them. "Why do you need to eat?!" I was angry still—furious, outraged, seething. "I shouldn't have to die this way!" I raged, "It's not fair!"

Of course my words went unheeded. They always did.

In a fit of rage, I pointed my gun straight down at the nearest target and blew his—her, I couldn't fucking tell—head off, but the shower of brains and viscera didn't make me feel any better, because now there was only one bullet left, and I was saving it for me.

_I have to_, I thought, _it's either this or starving up here, or going crazy and throwing myself to them_. An image of what I might look like as a zombie flashed through my mind—pale, dead eyes, gory and chewed up, hungry for flesh—and I knew I couldn't let that happen to myself. If I turned, who knew what destruction I might wreak before somebody did what I couldn't and put an end to me.

I took a few deep breaths, hands shaking—my hands never shook, not since the first time I'd had to ice one of those sons-of-bitches—as I adjusted my grip on the gun, turning it away from them and up toward me. I wanted it to be quick, so I pressed the muzzle against the side of my head, where it was sure to blast right through the center of my brain. I was unwavering, mind made up that this was the only way. I wasn't even scared anymore—still a little pissed off, but not afraid. My hands were shaking from adrenaline and exhaustion, I told myself.

_On three_, I decided.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

_Click!_

"No. Fucking no!" Was it jammed? I snapped open the magazine in a fury. What kind of sick fucking bullshit was the universe trying to pull here? Then the empty magazine fell into my hand, and I realized that it wasn't the universe—I had been wrong.

I hadn't had six bullets left. I'd only had five.

The empty gun and magazine clattered loudly as they dropped to the rock. The magazine got caught in a small hollow, but the housing went skittering down the side of the outcropping, disappearing beneath the unsteady feet of the living dead. A sound reached my ears—it sounded like a mixture of hysterical laughter and desperate sobbing. It wasn't until I dropped to my knees that I realized that the sound was coming from me.

x

Zombies made Korra go cray.


	2. Chapter 2

Where Did All These Zombies Come From?  
2

I was lying in bed, warm, comfy. Nobody had come to wake me up yet, which was fine by me; I was perfectly content to just lie there, whiling away the morning hours, listening to birds singing in the trees outside. Fine at least until my mom came and woke me up for breakfast. I could hear her cooking, the sounds of clunking pots and pans reaching me in my state of half-sleep. It made my stomach gurgle just thinking about it.

As I fantasized about breakfast, my fingers curled into soft fur, and I knew Naga—polar-bear dog, my best friend, etc.,—was sleeping on my bed again. Mom hated it, worried she might smother me in my sleep, or worse, get dog hair all over my clothes and sheets, but I couldn't care less. Naga's a sweetheart, a big softy. As much of a cliché as it is, she really is my best and truest friend.

With a smile on my face, I tried to roll onto my side, to snuggle closer to my pal, but something stopped me. There was a painful tugging sensation in my right arm, and suddenly Naga's warm fluff wasn't so warm and fluffy anymore. Her fur turned smooth and stiff, like sheets washed without fabric softener, and the pain in my arm was poking sharp tendrils through the happy little illusion I'd built in my mind.

My eyes flew open and I sat bolt-upright on the narrow cot I had somehow wound up dreaming on. What I had mistaken for birdsong outside my bedroom window was the sound of an overheard fixture humming, and the sound of clattering breakfast dishes was a clunking pipe in the wall. _Something is wrong_, an alarm bell sang in my head. _Where am I?_

Looking down, I saw someone had stuck an IV in my arm. The tube was taped against my forearm, and there was a bag hung up on a rack by the cot, dripping fluids down into my bloodstream. Disoriented, I reached for the tube and tried to yank it out. Let me tell you something; when they do that in the movies they don't tell you how much that shit hurts.

My yelp of pain must have alerted whoever had brought me here to my wakefulness, because a heavy, green metal door to my right sprang open, and in came…a kid. "You're awake!" she chirped, and before I could say anything she turned tail and fled just as fast as she had appeared. The fuck. What was going on here? The last thing I remembered was being adrift in a sea of trees, stranded on top of a big-ass rock, surrounded by zombies.

Not thirty seconds after the little girl disappeared, I heard footsteps outside again. I braced myself, squeezing my arm to staunch the flow of blood from the half-embedded IV needle. My whole arm was throbbing, but I was ready to fight my way out of wherever the hell I was, if need be.

"Ikki, I swear, if you're making things up again—," an exasperated male voice said, cut off in mid-sentence by the girl.

"I'm not!" she insisted, "She's really awake this time, I swear!" They were right outside the door by then—I could see their shadows on the wall. That was when my mind fully registered the fact that wherever I was, they had electricity.

"See!" the bounding figure of the little girl—Ikki, I guess—exclaimed as she came to lean on the cot, looking up at me with the sort of reverence usually reserved for pop-stars, or the ice-cream man.

"Yeah, I see," said the other voice flatly, then with concern, "Shit, what did you do?" I barely managed to tear my gaze away from the kid—she was freaking me out a little, to be honest—to look up at him.

"Oh," I said, my eyes meeting his, "I…erm…slipped." _Good one Korra. Never mind that you're sitting in a bed_. _Idiot_.

"Ikki, go get your mother," he said, sounding weary as he reached up to rub a hand across his forehead. As soon as she had scampered out of the room, he let his hand drop, then held it out for me to shake. "I'm Mako," he said, "I guess you're wondering why you're here."

I reached out to take his hand with the one that wasn't covered in blood. "Uh. Yes. I was." My stupid tongue had stopped working. Or maybe it was my brain. Either way, one or the other wasn't transmitting, and the mounting sense of alarm I'd been experience was now dissipating, all because of this "Mako," guy.

He was tall, dark haired, golden eyed, and stupidly good-looking. Like, the kind of good-looking that makes you a little angry. I kind of wanted to hit him, but in the end I punked out and decided against it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that my limbs were in revolt, or maybe it was because I was in a strange place with a strange guy, and it was the zombie apocalypse. One of the two, I'm sure.

Somehow I managed to clear my throat and add in, "My name is Korra," or something, because I forgot how words happen, but he didn't seem to think anything untoward was going on.

"Nice to meet you officially, Korra. We—my group—we found you in the woods," he began as he hauled a short stool over to the side of my bed. I was surprised when he pulled off his gloves and reached for my arm, even more so when he produced a sterile bandage to hold against my self-inflicted injury.

"I figured," I said without thinking, like the smartass I am. Thankfully, my remark just made him smirk.

"We saw the creeps first, all crowded around the rock, so we figured there was something up there they wanted. Tarrlok wanted to scavenge your pack, so we took out the zombies and he sent me up there, and that's where you were; curled up, sick from exposure, running a fever, but alive." I nodded along as he spoke, trying to think back to what had happened. I knew I had spent a good deal of time cursing fate and crying like a baby on that stupid rock. I guess I was grateful they hadn't found me until after all that. "Do you know how long you were out there?" he asked.

I shrugged. The details were fuzzy. "A few days? I can't remember."

"It's a good thing we found you when we did. Pema said you wouldn't have made it through another night out in the woods like that."

"I…," I was at a loss for words, "Thanks."

"No problem," he said with a smile, which quickly transformed into a frown. He leaned forward, tone lowering conspiratorially so that I felt inclined to lean in closer as well. Not that I was opposed to it, really. "Tarrlok wanted to leave you behind. He said we have enough mouths to feed without wasting resources on somebody who was going to die anyway. Just a heads up; he's probably going to be a real prick to you."

_Great_, I thought, but before I could respond there was a knock on the doorframe. Pema had arrived, it seemed. An older woman with a warm, motherly smile, she looked to be close to middle-age, with a few grey streaks in her otherwise brown hair. What really grabbed me by the ass about her, though, was that she was very extremely, obviously pregnant. I figured she had to be pretty far along, to be as big as she was, but seeing a pregnant lady with everything else that had been going on…it made me feel uneasy. Babies are just not the type of people you want around when you're fighting for your life. That's Survival 101.

"Oh, my," she said when she saw Mako applying pressure to my bloody arm, "Looks like you don't waste time." For a moment I thought she was talking about him and me, and I would have blushed to my roots if I hadn't realized she was only referring to the speed at which I'd tried to escape my bed.

"I wasn't really thinking straight," I answered as she pregnant-lady-wobbled into the room, quickly replacing Mako on his stool.

"Oh, that's to be expected," she said, "You've been through quite a lot."

"Haven't we all," Mako muttered from the corner he'd retreated to. Either Pema hadn't heard him or she chose to ignore this comment, because she cheerily asked him to get the medkit from the cabinet for her.

"So, where am I?" I finally remembered to ask after introductions were made. She had already told me that she was a nurse as she carefully began to extract the needle and patch up my arm-hole, and I had told her my name.

"An underground bunker," she said, matter-of-factly, "You'll be perfectly safe here. We have a generator, and a well, so there's electricity and running water. There's even a courtyard upstairs, if you ever need exercise."

"It's surrounded by a wall," Mako added, "but if you ever wind up on guard duty, the view's not too bad."

"There, all done," Pema said, patting my arm gently, "If you don't pick at it, you might not even wind up with a scar."

"Thanks," I said with real gratitude, though ending up with a scar was pretty far down on the list of things I was concerned with.

"Not a problem, Korra," she said with another kindly smile. "Mako can show you around, if you'd like. I have to get back to work."

I waited until she was out of the room to ask Mako what sort of work she could possibly have to do in a bunker underneath the ground. He shrugged, "Pema and her husband run the joint. Tarrlok is in charge of making supply runs, and defense, but Pema controls supplies and medicine, and nobody likes Tarrlok so Tenzin takes care of everything else. If you decide to stick around, I'm sure you'll get to hear them arguing." He said all this with a touch of bitterness and irritation, so it was that I started my tour of the bunker with some trepidation.

"How many people are down here?" I asked as he led me down the hall.

"Twenty-six now, with you here. There were more, but people get sick of each other pretty fast when they're locked in a giant rat's maze together."

For some reason this remark worried me, probably a lot more than it should have. "What about you?"

"What, am I gonna take off because Tarrlok makes me want to set something on fire? Nah, I don't care where I am, as long as my brother and me are safe."

"Your brother?"

"Yeah, Bolin. He's around somewhere, probably scheming up some new speech that'll convince me to let him come out on supply runs." For a second I almost asked why he wouldn't, but I stopped myself before the words escaped my lips. I'm normally not the Queen of Tact, but it would have been a stupid question. If I had a little brother, would I be letting him run around dodging zombies when there was a perfectly safe hole in the ground for him to hide in? No, of course not, are you fucking crazy?

The bunker wasn't that big, as it turned out. The bottom floor was sealed off because it had been rotted and flooding when Tenzin and his family had gotten there, so only the first two levels were livable. The top floor was considered a common area, because being aboveground it was where most people wanted to spend their time. Sunlight, fresh air—it sounded good to me, so that was where we ended up after Mako showed me where the mess hall and bathrooms where.

"I can't believe you guys have running water," I said as I stood in the center of the courtyard. It was small—maybe half the length of a football field, and less than half as wide. A good portion of it had been dedicated to growing a vegetable garden, too, but I didn't care. I was standing outside, and there was zero danger of a zombie sneaking up on me. This was fucking Heaven on Earth. "How did you even find this place?"

From the surface, the exterior buildings looked sturdy enough, but there were bars on the windows, and the entrance to the bunker was hidden behind a secret door. Most people would have moved on once they realized how much effort it would take to get inside.

"It was Tenzin," Mako explained, "He was some kind of historical curator or something for Republic City. He managed landmarks, and he knew about this place because it was some kind of communications bunker during the war. They were working on fixing it up, making it into a hotel-slash-museum or some crap like that—that's why everything works. The well is up the hill, and there's a cesspool—as long as there's water, we'll be good here." The way he said it, it made me feel like you'd have to be absolutely out of your damn mind to skip out on this place.

"How'd you end up here? Did you know him? You know, before?"

He shook his head, "Nah, Bo and I were on our own for a while, even before all this started. We ran into Hasook when he was still around, and he brought us back to Tarrlok." His expression soured as he spoke, and I winced inwardly. Were there any safe topics with this guy? Needless to say, I decided not to ask why Hasook wasn't around anymore.

Instead, I asked if there was a chance I could get something to eat. Now that I'd been up and walking around for a while, I was really starting to realize how hungry I was. Aside from whatever had been in that IV drip, I hadn't eaten in days.

The rations were basically what I expected them to be—the girl in the mess hall gave me an apple, a granola bar, and a sandwich. I didn't ask what kind of meat was in the sandwich, both because I didn't care, and because sometimes it's better not to know. "Jinora's another one of Tenzin and Pema's kids," Mako said by way of introduction.

Arching an eyebrow, I said, "Those two know how to keep busy, huh?" Mako snorted, and Jinora gave me a knowing, annoyed look. She couldn't have been much older than ten, but apparently she knew what I was talking about and did not approve.

We sat down, and I mulled over my new situation while I chewed. Mako seemed perfectly fine sitting there in silence, thought I felt slightly awkward. I didn't know where to look, and kept staring at him inadvertently. _That's not the kind of thing you should be worrying about, Korra_, I told myself. It was fine to look, but I didn't want to end up like Pema down here.

What I should have been thinking about was how I could contribute. These people needed to know that I wasn't just going to be "another mouth to feed," like that Tarrlok guy seemed to think. _You're a good—great—shot, and you're fast_. I knew I could be a member of whatever sort of team they sent out to hunt for supplies. That would be ideal, of course, but really, I would have done whatever they wanted me to do. Scrub toilets, lick the floor clean, and any other demeaning, menial job that no one else wanted to do. Anything was better than fighting tooth and nail out in the wilderness. I was sick of that—more than sick of it. I was exhausted, and I didn't want to go back to it. Not for good, at least.

I was about to ask Mako about it, how exactly I should approach the situation, when his brother walked into the room.

"Mako, Tarrlok and Tenzin are at it aga—hey, Unconscious Girl, you're awake!—they're at it again. Thought you'd like to know. I'm Bolin by the way. And you are?" He thrust his hand out for me to shake, and I had no other recourse but to take it.

"Uh, Korra. What do you mean, they're 'at it again?'" I asked.

Mako sighed resignedly, and stood up as he said, "They're arguing. I guess I should go see if I can intervene. You better come too, Korra. I'm sure it's you they're fighting about."

X

No zombies in this chapter. I know, disappointing, but you'll be alright.


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks to the enigmatically named "Me" for reviewing! Your encouragement is much appreciated, and pretty much my sole motivation for writing this whole chapter!

Where Did All These Zombies Come From?  
3

Mako was right. Tarrlok was a prick.

Nothing really makes you feel welcome like listening to two people arguing over whether or not to throw you to the sharks—sharks being an analogy for zombies here, and yes, that was sarcasm. I was livid, but my survival instincts had been honed to a jagged edge by my months scrounging alone, so I managed to hold my tongue.

"How many times is it going to be 'just one more', Tenzin? Because by my count, this is number forty-three," Tarrlok sneered as he stalked back and forth, posturing like an alley-cat.

"Yes, and as you know, there are only twenty-five of those forty-three left. Twenty-six, counting Korra." Tenzin was calmer, but I could tell by the rigid way he was standing that Tarrlok was walking on thin-ice. The room we were in was small—some sort of office, complete with a desk, and a United Republic flag hung in the corner. Mako and I stood to the side, watching the back-and-forth, while both men ignored us as if we weren't even there.

"And I don't know which is worse," Tarrlok spat, flipping his pony-tails like a diva, "that you keep letting more in, or that you keep letting them leave."

Tenzin sighed. He was bald, with a pretty sweet moustache-beard combo going on. He reached up to tug on said beard, as if the gesture gave him some measure of comfort. "We've been over this—," he began wearily.

"I know we have, and you continue to refuse to even listen to me! Every person that leaves here leaves with information on us! They know how to get in, how to move around, where we are, what we have!" He leaned forward on the desk, jabbing the surface with a finger to emphasize each point.

"We have children here. Families. Who do you think would sell us out?" Tenzin demanded.

"Any one of them! All of them! People will do whatever they need to survive, Tenzin!"

"Like you?" the older man asked coolly.

Tarrlok narrowed his eyes and stood up straight, his glare cold and unflinching. "Yes. Like me," he agreed. For the first time since I'd entered the room he finally seemed to notice me. I felt a slight jolt go through me as his eyes landed on mine, and I had to fight the urge to look away, to meet his gaze defiantly. "I'm sure Korra would agree as well," he said as a smarmy grin grew across his face, "I'll bet you did all sorts of things to make sure you came through all of this alive."

Something about him made me cringe inwardly, particularly when he sauntered over to tower over me, in an attempt to be intimidating. "I did what I had to," I said stiffly.

"Oh, I'll bet," he chuckled humorlessly. "We'll see how she shapes up," he said, addressing Tenzin again, "And it'll be on your head if things don't…work out." And with those ominous parting words, Tarrlok stepped out of the room, shoving past Mako to get through the door.

"Can I shoot him now?" Mako asked, brushing his shoulder off as if Tarrlok had left his jacket stained.

Tenzin's only answer was to sigh, and drop down into the creaky old chair behind the desk. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"No worries," I said, relieved. I had been about two seconds away from yanking one of Tarrlok's pony-tails out of his scalp. The guy gave me serious heebie-jeebies, and that had been after one meeting. "Is he always like that?"

"Yes," Mako answered.

"Sometimes," Tenzin admitted, "He can be reasonable at times, and I can't say he doesn't get the job done when we need supplies."

"He's a jackass," Mako insisted, leaning down on Tenzin's desk, "We'd be better off without him."

"There's nothing that can be done about it, Mako," Tenzin said sternly, "He's here to stay until he decides to leave. As we all are." For a few seconds they just stared at each other, Mako scowling, Tenzin austere.

Then Mako heaved a sigh, straightened, and threw his hands up in the air. "Fine, whatever," he said dismissively, as if he didn't actually care.

"Korra," Tenzin said, addressing me directly, looking relieved, "There's a roster of responsibilities for all of our inhabitants. We'll give you a few days to rest up, and you're free to leave if that is what you desire. If, however, you want to stay, it would be helpful to know of any skills you possess that could be put to use." He smiled, fatherly, reminding me of his wife. They were like some kind of bad night-time family drama married couple.

"Well," I said, "I can work, y'know, get my hands dirty. I, uh, I was in track and field. I'm a crack shot, too." I had been trying not to immediately point that out, especially now that I knew what Tarrlok was like. I didn't want to wind up with a bullet in the back after everything else I'd been through, and he seemed like the type to put it there.

It was just that, when I really thought about it, there wasn't a whole lot that I was really good at. Back in the real world, I'd been hoping for an athletic scholarship, so that I could go to college and get out of my podunk little town. What I had wanted to do after that had been sort of vague and foggy, a half-formed idea that I couldn't quite recall. In all honestly, I just hadn't had the guts to admit that there wasn't really much I was good at that didn't involve running.

Maybe I just figured it would come to me, like an epiphany. Maybe it would have. There was no chance of that now, though.

"I'm sure Tarrlok will be thrilled to hear that," Mako said, grinning dryly.

"Yes, well," Tenzin cleared his throat, "We'll start you off easy. I'll ask Pema to assign you something."

I wanted to tell him that I didn't need to be babied, but Mako was already leaving the room, and I got the feeling that I had been dismissed. Feeling miffed, I followed my chaperon back into the hall, where we found Bolin waiting for us.

"So?" he asked, falling into step alongside his brother.

"So what?"

"How'd it go?"

"How do you think, Bo? Tarrlok was a dick, Tenzin was a pansy—same shit, different day."

"Oh," Bolin said, sounding disappointed, "So, no ground on letting me come on runs?"

"'Fraid not," Mako replied with a shrug, "Sorry, bro." Now _that_ piqued my interest. Mako hadn't said a word about bringing Bolin on runs—there hadn't been any chances. It wasn't my business, but it bothered me that he was lying to his brother, even if it was to protect him.

"What about you, Korra? What did Tarrlok say?" Bolin said, falling back to walk beside me.

"Not much aside from making it clear that he thinks I'm gonna be the downfall of this whole operation," I said, with an encompassing gesture.

Bolin snorted, "Ah, he's always like that with new people. Even Mako, and now he's second in command of our field unit."

"Not because he likes me, Bo," Mako assured his brother, "He just knows that I know how to get shit done."

"Well, either way," Bolin replied cheerfully. Mako scoffed, and shook his head with renewed exasperation. Bolin smirked, voice dropping to a whisper as Mako outpaced us, and he leaned toward me to say, "Just between us, Mako loves arguing, especially with Tarrlok. If you wanna get under my brother's skin, you just have to be super nice to him, no matter what he says. It makes him _so_ mad."

I couldn't help but giggle at his waggling eyebrows. "I'll keep that in mind," I promised. Bolin winked, and straightened as Mako glanced back at us to see what the fuss was about. Following Bolin's lead I smiled and waved, and he turned away with a noise of disgust.

"Told you," Bolin said with a self-satisfied grin.

X

Bodies littered the ground, and another joined the count as the young man with no eyes jerked back and crumpled into a rotting heap. "Nice shot!" Bolin hooted, cringing when Mako shot him a look. "Sorry," he hissed, "I'll be quiet, promise."

My only answer was to grin. This was my first time manning the sniper rifle, and I was proving my worth one bullet at a time. The landscape outside of the bunker courtyard was a veritable graveyard. When I asked why they just leave the bodies there, Tarrlok's terse answer was that they were a deterrent. I suspected he must mean a deterrent to the living, since the dead didn't seem to care.

Speaking of the Devil, he was there, watching with a stoic expression. I was doing my best to ignore him, but something about being in the same room with the guy made my skin crawl. The fact that it was a cramped room on top of a guard tower only made it worse. _Sometimes you just gotta grit your teeth and get it done, Korra_, my father's voice played in my head. He was right, of course, and I was showing them all what I could do, really sticking it right up Tarrlok's ass.

"Not bad," he said, holding up his binoculars, "That's seven so far." His tone was grudging, but Mako had been right about one thing—once he saw that I wasn't totally useless, he became slightly less irritating. "Not so much that you don't still want to choke him with his own ponytails, but close," Mako had said before we came up here for target practice. I was careful not to waste a single bullet, taking my time to aim, and anticipating how the zed was going to move before it did. It's the sort of thing you can only get good at with extensive experience.

"I wonder why there's so many of them out here in the woods," I mused as I took aim again, pressing my eye to the scope. There was a small herd of them out there, milling about. None of them seemed overly concerned with their fallen comrades.

"They're attracted to areas where people are, and a lot of them follow runners, like they followed you," Tarrlok explained, frowning as though it was all my fault.

"Sorry," I said, "Next time I'll just let them catch me." Somebody sniggered behind me, though I couldn't tell if it was Bolin or Mako. They both seemed to have an equal appreciation for snark.

I dropped a few more creepers, then I began to scan the woods around us. We were deep in the hills, close to the mountains in fact. Aside from a few hunting cabins, there really wasn't much out here, and Mako had told me they'd stripped the area clean of supplies. "We've been having to go out further and further each time," he'd said. I could tell he didn't like it, having to make long trips farther away from home. From the way he said it, it made it seem like some runs took days rather than hours.

As I scanned the hills through the scope, something caught my eyes through the thinning treetops. Autumn was here, stripping the branches of their growth, and stripping us humans of valuable cover and hiding places. "What's that?" I said, squinting as something glittered in the weak sunlight.

"What's what?" Mako asked, hurrying to peek out the window, handgun at the ready.

"Dunno. Gimme your binoculars," I said, standing and leaning the rifle against the wall. Tarrlok glared at me, but set the expensive piece of equipment in my hand. It took me a moment to find it again, but the glint drew me back, and I zoomed in on it as much as the binoculars would allow. "There," I said, standing back as he took them from me, pressing them against his eyes. "Out past that hill with the soldier pines, near that patch of red trees." I aimed him in the right direction, and a few seconds later saw him tense.

"What is it?" Mako said.

"A fire tower. A big one, like a ranger station," Tarrlok answered, handing the binoculars to his second-in-command.

"Shit," Mako said, studying the structure from afar, "Those places are usually stocked up good. Think it's worth a look?"

"I think it's definitely worth a look," Tarrlok said greedily, "Suit up, you two. We're heading out immediately. Nice work, Korra." I was taken slightly aback by the compliment, but before I could respond, Bolin jumped up from the crate he'd been sitting on, blocking the door.

"What about me?" he said.

"What about you, what?" Tarrlok said with a glower.

"I could come," he insisted, "I could help."

To my great surprise, Tarrlok looked past Bolin, to where Mako stood by the doorway. The older of the two brothers gave his head an almost imperceptible shake, and Tarrlok's cold blue gaze flickered back to Bolin's hopeful green one. "No," he said, "You're not trained. You'd be a liability," and with that he swept out of the room, with Mako hot on his heels. Bolin and I lingered behind for a moment. I didn't know what to think about what had just happened.

"I'm sick of them treating me like a kid!" Bolin grumbled, "I'm strong, I mean, I was on the wrestling team! You don't think I'd be a 'liability' do you, Korra?" His sweet naiveté made my words die on my tongue. I wanted to tell him what I'd seen, but suddenly I knew why Mako was so keen to protect his brother. Even though Bolin was less than a year younger than I was, he was far more innocent, even with everything that had happened. After all, wrestling wasn't exactly a skill that would serve well against flesh-eating corpses.

"No," I said, though I didn't know that. I barely knew anything about these people, but I knew that telling Bolin something was up between Mako and Tarrlok was a bad idea.

"Why don't you put in a good word for me," Bolin said as we hurried down the stairs, "I bet they'd listen to you."

"I'll…try," I agreed, though the lie left a bad taste in my mouth.

Back down in the bunker, I was fitted with something akin to riot gear. Somewhere along the line Tarrlok had scrounged up several bullet-proof vests, and body padding to protect from bites. It was all a bit heavy and awkward, but Mako promised that I'd get used to it. "Anyone else coming?" Mako asked as we were all shrugging on our gear. "Saikhan," Tarrlok said, "and Tahno." I could tell by the rapidly deepening look of disgust on Mako's face that he didn't like either of these choices, but we were shortly joined by the two nonetheless. Jinora was with them, having hunted them down for Tarrlok. She watched us with something akin to anxiety as we finished getting ready.

"Do you really have to go?" she asked, frowning, the look in her eyes far older than it should have been.

"Yes," Mako said. Without a word, the girl turned and raced out of the room. I had a feeling she was particularly upset over the fact that Mako was going.

"Somebody has a crush," I said, bringing all movement in the room to a standstill. "What?_ I_ thought it was obvious." I would have broken into a round of "Jinora and Mako, sitting in a tree," but I was interrupted before I could begin.

"I feel bad for anyone with a crush on the great and powerful Mako. He's so high up on his horse, he can't see us all way down here," the boy I'd been introduced to as Tahno drawled. He had immediately struck me as incredibly annoying, what with his hair perfectly coifed, and his body reeking of cheap cologne. Who in their right mind gave a crap about stuff like that these days? Fucking nobody, that's who.

"Funny," Mako replied through gritted teeth, "I was wondering how _you_ can see any of us with your head crammed so far up your—,"

"Enough," Saikhan, an older, grouchy looking man huffed, "If you two spend this whole trip sniping at each other again, I'm going to throw myself off a cliff."

"Good riddance," Mako muttered.

"Alright, shut up," Tarrlok snapped, "Everybody grab your gear. Korra, this is your first time going out, so you'll be in the middle between Mako and Saikhan. I'll take point, and Tahno will bring up the rear. Let's move out!" _This is a great team_, I thought as we filed out of the storage room. I'd survived so long on my own I wasn't sure how well I would work with others, though I'd been given enough lectures about teamwork by my old coach before track meets.

We were at the staircase that led up to ground level before Tenzin caught up with us. "Where do you think you're going?" he demanded as he strode up to our small group.

"We were just gonna run and catch a movie," Tahno quipped, though both Tarrlok and Tenzin ignored him.

"We're going on a run," Tarrlok said, "Korra spotted a fire tower, and there's a high likelihood of there being supplies stockpiled there."

Tenzin seemed to notice I was there for the first time, and he blinked in surprise. "You're bringing Korra? She's only had a few days to recover, she's—,"

"She'll be fine," Tarrlok said dismissively, a complete one-eighty from how he'd regarded me just a few days before. "She's a dead shot, and she's the one who noticed the tower. It's a little further out than we've gone before, and it was hidden by the trees to boot."

"I don't like it," Tenzin grumbled, crossing his arms, "You think you're the first person who would've realized there would be supplies there?"

"_No_," Tarrlok huffed, almost petulantly, "that's why we're going to be cautious. I'm sorry I didn't clear this with you, but we have to act fast." Though his tone suggested he wasn't really sorry, the words themselves seemed to do the trick.

"Alright," Tenzin relented, regarding us all with a sober expression, "be careful, then."

"I'm leaving Toza, Shin, and Song here," Tarrlok said, "That should be enough to cover all the lookout shifts. Tell Toza he's in charge while I'm gone." With that, he turned and disappeared up the staircase. I barely had time to spare a glance toward Tenzin before I was swept up with the rest of them.

My stomach twisted as we headed for the exit—barricaded and studded with every kind of lock you can imagine. It took ten minutes just to get the door open, and Song—one of Tarrlok's lackeys—stood ready to lock up behind us once we were out. _Oh, spirits_, I thought as the door swung open. The sun had come out while we were outside, and the light was blinding. To think, it only took a few steps to separate me from food and safety, to thrust me back into the living nightmare that the world had become.

For a few brief seconds I thought I might panic. Somehow, the smell of death was suddenly stronger, more pungent, and I felt so exposed in the small field that separated us from the woods. We were too close to the wall for my liking, too easy to corner, I knew from experience. I was a split second away from demanding to be let back inside when a hand settled gently on my shoulder. "You alright?" I looked up to see Mako watching me, expression calm.

"Yeah," I breathed, "yeah, just…" I couldn't think of anything to say, but I didn't need to.

"I know," he said. "Come on. We've got work to do."

X

This was shockingly easy to write. Jesum.


End file.
